Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

(09/13/2026) Gospel Reading: Matthew 18:21-35

“ Lord, How Often Shall I Forgive My Brother? 

 

I give you a new commandment, says the Lord:
love one another as I have loved you.

 

From the desk of Fr. Leo

     The theme of this weekend's readings is forgiveness. Reading the paper each day shows us what refusing to forgive does to nations, as they keep trying to get revenge on one another for some real or imagined act of cruelty. Some of the battles between different people have roots that go back hundreds of years. Many still live by the ancient principle of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” That rule was meant to keep a person from exacting more revenge than what was appropriate. In other words, if someone knocked out one of your teeth, you could only knock out one of theirs and no more! I couldn't find the exact quote, but I think it was Martin Luther King who said, “If we all insisted on an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, soon everyone in the world would be blind and toothless.” In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:38), Jesus told us that's no longer the rule we should live by. This weekend's parable illustrates His position of forgiveness. We can't hold on to hating and desire for revenge. We have to let go.

     Refusing to forgive is a form of anger. Anger we will not let go. The man in the parable in this weekend's gospel, who refused to forgive his fellow servant may have been motivated by selfishness or pettiness or greed or by the refusal to let anyone take advantage of him. I think in most cases, however, when someone refuses to let go of their anger, it is because of pride. We tell ourselves, when we are hurt by someone, we should not have been treated like that. No doubt, we were treated badly, but we do more harm to ourselves than to anyone else when we keep that anger alive in us. It will only eat us up emotionally and maybe even physically. As a priest and counselor, I have seen what refusing to forgive does to the individual who cannot let go of the pain or hurt someone has caused them. Jesus' admonition to forgive is good not only spiritually but psychologically too. One of the people we often have difficulty forgiving is ourselves. We do something we are embarrassed about or ashamed of and we continue to beat ourselves up. If we do it to ourselves, we always feel a lot of depression until we come to realize it; the problem was pride (more accurately it was neurotic pride). Our pride tells us, we should be better than we really are and when we fail, our pride comes down on us with vengeance. Certainly,  we should keep working to improve ourselves and to learn from our mistakes, but we also need to accept the fact that we are not perfect. Beating ourselves up will not help us improve ourselves. We must not forget how generous God has been to us. God's love and mercy is worth more than many billions of dollars. It’s worth is infinite, because God's love is infinite.

Meditation: Does mercy overlook justice? Justice demands that everyone be given their due. So when is it right to show mercy and pardon to those who have acted unjustly or wrongly? The prophet Amos speaks of God forgiving transgression three times, but warns that God may not revoke punishment for the fourth (see Amos 1:3-13; 2:1-6). When Peter posed the question of forgiveness, he characteristically offered an answer he thought Jesus would be pleased with. Why not forgive seven times! How unthinkable for Jesus to counter with the proposition that one must forgive seventy times that.

No limit to granting forgiveness and pardon
Jesus makes it clear that there is no limit to giving and receiving forgiveness. He drove the lesson home with a parable about two very different kinds of debts. The first man owed an enormous sum of money - millions in our currency. In Jesus' time this amount was greater than the total revenue of a province - more than it would cost to ransom a king! The man who was forgiven such an incredible debt could not, however, bring himself to forgive his neighbor a very small debt which was about one-hundred-thousandth of his own debt.The contrast could not have been greater!

Jesus paid our ransom to set us free from the debt of sin
No offense our neighbor can do to us can compare with our own personal debt to God for offending him! We have been forgiven an enormous debt we could not repay on our own. That is why the Father in heaven sent his only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who freely and willing gave up his life for our sake to ransom us from slavery to sin, Satan, and death. Paul the Apostle states, "you were bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 7:23 ) and that price was Jesus' death on the cross. Through the shedding of his blood on the cross, Jesus not only brought forgiveness and pardon for our offenses, but release from our captivity to Satan and bondage to sin.

Set free from futile thinking and sinful living
The Lord Jesus sets us free from a futile mind and way of living in sin and spiritual darkness. "You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers ...with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18). Christ "gave himself to redeem us from all iniquity" (Titus 2:14). Iniquity describes the futile ways of wrong thinking, sinful attitudes and wrong behavior, and disregarding or treating God's commandments lightly. We have been forgiven an enormous debt which we could never possibly repay. We owe God a debt of gratitude for the mercy and grace he has given us in his Son, Jesus Christ.

Forgiving others is a sacred duty
If God has shown mercy to us in granting us pardon for our sins, then we, in turn, must show mercy and forgiveness towards every person who has offended us. The willingness to forgive those who offend us is a sacred duty. If we expect God to pardon us and show us his mercy when we sin and disobey his commandments, then we must be willing to let go of any resentment, grievance, or ill-will we feel towards our neighbor. Jesus teaches us to pray daily for the grace and strength to forgive others in the same measure in which God has forgiven us (Matthew 6:12,14-15). If we do not show mercy and forgiveness to our fellow human beings, how can we expect God to forgive us in turn? The Apostle James says that "judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy" (James 2:13).

Mercy seasons justice and perfects it
Mercy is the flip-side of God's justice. Without mercy justice is cold, calculating, and even cruel. Mercyseasons justice assalt seasons meat and gives it flavor. Mercy follows justice and perfects it. Justice demands that the wrong be addressed. To show mercy without addressing the wrong and to pardon the unrepentant is not true mercy but license. C.S. Lewis, a 20th century Christian author wrote: "Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of Justice: transplanted to the marshlands of mere Humanitarianism, it becomes a man-eating weed, all the more dangerous because it is still called by the same name as the mountain variety." If we want mercy shown to us we must be ready to forgive others from the heart as God has forgiven us. Do you hold any grudge or resentment towards anyone? Ask the Lord to purify your heart that you may show mercy and loving-kindness to all - and especially to those who cause you grief and ill-will.

Lord Jesus, you have been kind and forgiving towards me. May I be merciful as you are merciful. Free me from all bitterness and resentment that I may truly forgive from the heart those who have caused me injury or grief.

read more at: http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org

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